


you think my bruised knees are sort of pretty

by fireblazie



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fandom AU, M/M, Social Media, Work Contains Fan(s) or Fandom(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 02:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10755039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireblazie/pseuds/fireblazie
Summary: He’s not entirely sure how long they stay there, staring awkwardly at each other, but it’s long enough that Yuuri feels compelled to break the silence, which never ends well.“You’re shorter than I thought,” he blurts out.At the same time, Viktor suddenly says, “I like your knees.”“…thanks,” Yuuri says after an awkward pause.—In which Yuuri gets drunk at a con, earns the nickname Cake Boy, and promptly forgets all about it.





	you think my bruised knees are sort of pretty

**Author's Note:**

> a welcome-back-to-the-real-world-gift for [superman](http://archiveofourown.org/users/counterheist/pseuds/counterheist); a your-drunk-zike-stories-are-the-best gift for [zike](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cutthroatpixie/pseuds/cutthroatpixie); a hurray-you-finished your-essay gift for [kevystel](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kevystel/pseuds/kevystel); and a huge thank-you-for-helping-me-piece-this-together gift for [sonatine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sonatine).

**2015**

“Phichit,” Yuuri croaks into the cracked screen of his phone where Phichit had woken him up with a FaceTime call. “Phichit, I’m _dying._ ”

Phichit’s laughter bubbles out of the tinny speakers of his phone, and Yuuri abruptly flings the device down onto the rumpled sheets of his hotel room bed. “Somebody made questionable life choices last night.”

Yuuri’s only response is to bury his head underneath two pillows. “I didn’t,” he mutters. “At least, I don’t think I did?” Phichit’s reply is muffled. Belatedly, Yuuri gropes around for his phone and slips it beneath the pillows as well.

“Ah?” Phichit coughs, and Yuuri abruptly feels guilty for calling him; the only reason Phichit hadn’t been able to accompany him to the con was because he’d fallen ill with the Worst Flu Ever. “You really don’t remember?”

“I think someone spiked the punch,” Yuuri says miserably. 

Phichit hums sympathetically. “Oh, Yuuri. You know better than to drink the punch at a con. It’s what leads to your questionable life choices.”

“No questionable life choices were made,” Yuuri says firmly, his tone of voice in direct contrast with the way he gingerly peeks out from beneath his pillow, flinching at the sunlight. “Oh god. What time is it?”

“Ten-thirty,” Phichit chirps helpfully, and Yuuri nearly topples out of bed, leaving the phone amid rumpled sheets.

“My flight’s in an hour!” he gasps, stumbling around the room and shoving everything within reach into his suitcase. “Oh _shit_ —” He bites out a curse as he stubs his toe against the bathroom door.

“Don’t forget to take the free bathroom things,” Phichit calls out just as Yuuri tosses the complimentary shampoo and bar soap into his bag. “Yuuri. Breathe. You’ll make it in time, I promise. I’ll pick you up when you get here, okay?”

Yuuri picks up his phone and offers him a frazzled but grateful smile. “I’ll see you later. Thanks.”

Phichit flashes him a grin and a v-sign before ending the call. Yuuri throws on the first clean outfit he can get his hands on (dark gray track pants, and a TARDIS t-shirt). He rinses his mouth out with what’s left of his travel-sized Listerine, zips up his suitcase, and dashes out the door, luggage wheels squeaking as he desperately rushes to make his flight.

Behind him, a crumpled piece of paper with smudged writing flutters to the floor.

**2016**

The con is, as always, packed. Yuuri meanders aimlessly through the crowds, dressed as Eleven, tugging absentmindedly at his bowtie. As far as costumes go, it’s not exactly _original_ , but it’s comfortable, and Phichit had made him a sonic screwdriver for the occasion. 

Beside him, Phichit looks splendid and appropriately creepy as a Weeping Angel. He’s been stopped multiple times for pictures and advice on make-up and Yuuri’s been content to watch him in the background. Phichit loves the limelight like no one else, and Yuuri knows he’s posted just about everything to Instagram already.

But something strange begins to happen the longer they wander the convention center. Yuuri starts to become uncomfortably aware of several people staring at him and murmuring unintelligible things when they think he isn’t looking. More than once, he hears an odd phrase: _Cake Boy._

“Phichit,” Yuuri says, and Phichit squeezes his hand in comfort.

“Ignore them,” he says bracingly. “They’re just jealous of your wicked bowtie.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” Yuuri says, frowning, when he’s abruptly accosted by an angry Dalek.

“ _You,_ ” it hisses at Yuuri, who instinctively takes a step back. “If I could actually fucking exterminate you I would.”

“Me?” Yuuri squeaks out, as Phichit whips out his phone and begins documenting this for the Internet. “I don’t—”

“You _broke him, asshole_.” The Dalek jabs him in the chest with its arm. “Because of you and your fucking _cake fetish_ he hasn’t updated his fic in over _ten months_ and the last time somebody asked him about it he said that he couldn’t possibly imagine a happy ending when he was still _devastated over the events of last year, trying desperately to glue the pieces of his shattered heart back together, and why, oh why didn’t he call?_ ”

Utter, horrified silence.

Then: “ _Rogue Dalek,_ ” Phichit whispers in awe, and Yuuri regains enough sense to pull Phichit back when the Dalek lunges at him.

The Dalek doesn’t get very far, mainly because he’s being restrained by a Cyberman. “Do excuse him,” the Cyberman says. “He hasn’t eaten his vegetables today.”

The Dalek snarls something in angry, mutinous Russian. The Cyberman tightens his grip before flipping back his own visor. Yuuri blinks, and forces himself to remain very, very calm.

It’s _Viktor_.

“Little Daleks should go play elsewhere while the adults are talking,” Viktor says pleasantly. The Dalek says something else in Russian, not quite as pleasantly, before stomping off. The Cyberman turns back to Yuuri and extends his hand. “I am very sorry about him. My name is Viktor, by the way.” He gives Yuuri an oddly intense stare as he says so.

Yuuri stares at his hand before awkwardly shaking it. “Nice to meet you, Viktor,” he says, on autopilot. Then Viktor’s words come back to him. “Oh. Oh! No. It’s not—nothing. No big deal.”

“But he was so terribly rude to you. I was meant to be looking after him, you see, but I was—sidetracked. You must let me make it up to you. How about dinner? Or drinks?” 

“No,” Yuuri blurts out, and Viktor’s face falls. “No—no drinks.”

Viktor gives him an odd, probing look at that. “But dinner?” 

“I—I made plans with my friend—” 

“Cancelled,” Phichit says brightly.

“Cancelled?” Yuuri echoes weakly.

“Cancelled,” Phichit says. “I am—sick. Feeling sick. So sick. Very sick.”

“That’s terrible!” Viktor says.

“It really is!” Phichit agrees. “Are you staying at the hotel next door? Why don’t you two meet in the lobby at, say, six?”

“That sounds wonderful,” Viktor says, smiling at Yuuri warmly. Yuuri feels his insides loop around like a rollercoaster. “It’s a date.” 

Yuuri flushes. 

“See you later, Yuuri.” Viktor gives his hand a gentle squeeze—because, oh, of course they had been holding hands this entire time. Yuuri watches him numbly as he walks away before whirling around to pin Phichit with a glare.

“What the hell!”

Phichit skips away, linking his arm through Yuuri’s. “It’ll be fun! He seems nice. Don’t you stalk his blog?” He hums. “He’s a lot prettier in person.”

Yuuri doesn’t deny it. “That’s different!” he protests. “He could still—he could be a serial killer for all we know!”

“That’s why you’re going to take him to my cousin’s restaurant,” Phichit says logically. “Haven’t you been wanting drunken noodles, anyway? So you’ll take him there, I’ll be helping out in the kitchen and visiting family while negotiating my paycheck because I am totally going to buy that six-foot-tall Storm Trooper and I will put him in my kitchen and we can have breakfast together every morning and it will be delightful.”

“I thought you were _sick_ ,” Yuuri says flatly, which Phichit gamely ignores.

“And if Viktor does turn out to be a total creeper, you send me the Bat Signal and I’ll knock him out with our wok,” Phichit concludes.

Unfortunately, Yuuri has heard worse plans. “I guess,” he says, uncertainly. Phichit lets out a cheer and drags him along to the different exhibits, whistling the Doctor Who theme song under his breath.

“Wait,” Yuuri says suddenly. “How did Viktor know my name? I never said my name, did I?”

Phichit’s whistling grows suspiciously louder.

 

 

*

 

 

Yuuri’s been following Viktor’s online presence for _years._

Known online as _thedoctormakkachin_ , Yuuri has followed him from LiveJournal to Tumblr to AO3. He’s simply—amazing, and never ceases to surprise Yuuri with the sheer variety of his work. One day, he’ll post a raunchy smut piece featuring the Doctor, Rose, and Jack. The next, he’ll post something achingly poignant about Ten and Rose, weaving in lines of love and loss that shake Yuuri to his very soul. Because of it, he’s become a bit of a BNF; his works regularly appear on rec lists and he replies to all of his comments and asks with enthusiasm and glee. 

His current project sits at just over 30,000 words, a Groundhog Day alternate universe that explores the Doctor’s depression after the loss of each of his companions. The Doctor grows gradually more and more desperate after the loss of Rose, then Martha, then Donna and Amy and Rory and Clara—until it cycles back again, from the very beginning. It’s not exactly an original idea, and it could easily fall into the pile of all the other Groundhog Day AUs that exist on the Internet, but there is something undeniably real and raw and terrible about the way Viktor writes the Doctor in this one. 

(He’s known for his regular updates, but he hasn’t updated in nearly a year. His readers had been in an uproar, _WHERE HAS THEDOCTORMAKKACHIN GONE?_ the subject of many Tumblr posts in the Doctor Who tag before Viktor himself had reassured them that he was perfectly all right, but was currently in search of inspiration, and that the fic would be updated when he found it again. Yuuri doesn't hold on to much hope: ten months is a long time, after all.) 

Although his blog is primarily fandom-based, every now and then Viktor will post a selfie. Yuuri had needed a moment (several moments, really) after the first time he’d seen Viktor’s face, a dazzling smile on his lips as he’d pointed finger guns at the camera. Because of course Viktor would be ridiculously good-looking. Of course he would be.

Yuuri doesn’t have a folder of those selfies saved to his computer.

He doesn’t, because that would be weird and vaguely creepy.

Even if each selfie Viktor posts garners hundreds of notes from his followers, with the majority of the commentary downright lewd and inappropriate. 

At any rate, Yuuri’s content in his own small corner of fandom. He doesn’t write fic, but he indulges posting art once in a while. It’s fine. He doesn’t do it for the recognition. He does it to escape real life, and he smiles in genuine gratitude at what comments and reblogs he receives. He’s never existed on the same level as Viktor. He never will. And that’s fine. It is, it is.

 

 

*

 

 

Yuuri’s beginning to think he’s made a terrible, awful mistake.

He’s sitting in the hotel lobby, dressed in old blue jeans and the cleanest shirt he’d brought with him to this trip. It’s an olive green v-neck, and Phichit had said that it did wonders for his complexion, whatever that meant. He picks at a stray thread dangling from his sleeve and flicks it away absentmindedly.

He slips his phone out of his pocket and starts scrolling through Instagram. Phichit hasn’t wasted any time, already uploading several pictures from the con, including a group picture of every Weeping Angel he’d come across. He taps at the top of the screen, where Phichit’s posted a three-second clip of him cracking eggs one-handed into a large frying pan. He’s at his cousin’s restaurant, then. Yuuri breathes in, then out. It’s going to be okay.

His phone screen slowly fades to black. Oh, god. This had been a terrible idea from the beginning. He doesn’t even _know_ Viktor, not really. Reading all of his fics and blog posts hardly count. He’s only—he’s only seen his head, now that he starts to think about it; Viktor had been clad in Cybermen armor which had shielded everything else from view.

He opens up his text messages and begins typing out a frantic text to Phichit:

 

> **YOU:** this was such a mistake I think I’m going to leave?  
>  **PHICHIT:** DON’T YOU DARE  
>  **PHICHIT:** this has been a love story one year in the making  
>  **YOU:**???  
>  **PHICHIT:** yuuri love it’s gonna be fine  
>  **YOU:** ?? I don’t understand  
>  **YOU:** I am

 

Yuuri abruptly stops typing at the sight of a pair of feet stopping next to his. They’re clad in the most hideously expensive shoes, and his gaze travels up a pair of long legs in dark skinny jeans, to a light blue button-down, to Viktor’s perfect face.

 _I’m fucked,_ Yuuri thinks distantly.

He’s not entirely sure how long they stay there, staring awkwardly at each other, but it’s long enough that Yuuri feels compelled to break the silence, which never ends well.

“You’re shorter than I thought,” he blurts out. 

At the same time, Viktor suddenly says, “I like your knees.”

Yuuri blinks and glances down at his knees, which are poking out through the holes of his jeans. The jeans hadn’t come artistically ripped; they’re just actually that old. Absentmindedly, he reaches out to prod at a bruise on his left knee. He’d knocked it against a table earlier, when he’d been trying to get up in a hurry.

“…thanks,” Yuuri says after an awkward pause.

Viktor draws his gaze away from his knee. It looks as though it physically pains him to do so, which is… odd. “Did you have a place in mind to get dinner?” 

Yuuri stands up. “Yeah, um. It’s Phichit—my friend—his cousin’s restaurant. We always stop by when we fly up for the con. They’ve got the best drunken noodles. Um. Do you like Thai food?”

Viktor grins, slow and warm. “I do. Lead the way, Yuuri.”

 

 

*

 

 

**FOUR MONTHS AGO:**

**thedoctormakkachin**  
I realize this is incredibly sudden, but does your cosplay partner Yuuri have a Tumblr? I’m trying to get in contact with him.

 **hamstachit**  
um

 **thedoctormakkachin**  
I believe we met last year and I asked him to call me but he never did and perhaps this is very forward of me but I just. Well. I’d like to talk to him.

I know this sounds very strange. But I’m a little… desperate.

 **hamstachit**  
wait  
hold up  
HE MET YOU?  
*YOU*?  
VIKTOR?

 **thedoctormakkachin**  
Yes?

 **hamstachit**  
no what’s strange is he never even told me about this?  
he's such a huge fan omg he would have said wait  
wAIT  
was he wasted

 **thedoctormakkachin**  
I believe he did have quite a bit of the punch

 **hamstachit**  
A;LKSDJFKL;A;A  
omg poor baby yuuri  
also poor you

 **thedoctormakkachin**  
Poor me?

 **hamstachit**  
hell yeah poor you  
i assume he seduced you he has that effect on a lot of people but he’s totally clueless  
and now you’re stalking tumblr blogs trying to find out who he is  
yeah poor you

 **thedoctormakkachin**  
Oh  
Well, yes.  
He did.

 **hamstachit**  
tell me EVERYTHING

 **thedoctormakkachin**  
I have a video.  
Email?  
I think I can trust you not to upload this.

 **hamstachit**  
omg YES  
and duh of course  
i have restraint

 **thedoctormakkachin**  
Sent

 **hamstachit**  
yay!

 **hamstachit**  
omg  
omg?!  
OMG  
OMFG!!!!!!!!!

 **thedoctormakkachin**  
Yes  
Yes, quite

 **hamstachit**  
i repeat: poor you  
okay  
he has a tumblr but he doesn’t use it much  
i will help you

 **thedoctormakkachin**  
You are a godsend

 **hamstachit**  
damn right i am

 

 

**2016**

 

Phichit ends up watching them surreptitiously from the kitchen where he’s busy drying dishes as he pulls them out from the dishwasher. Viktor is chattering away, smile on his face, but Yuuri only has eyes for his plate of drunken noodles, twirling them listlessly around his chopsticks.

“Damn it, Yuuri,” Phichit whispers as he sets a freshly dried plate aside. “You’re doing that thing again where you sabotage yourself.” He wipes his hands on a borrowed apron and strides over to the fridge, pulling out two bottles of Singha beer. “Sanun,” he calls his cousin, “bring these over to that table, will you? Tell them it’s on the house.”

Sanun pins him with an unimpressed look. “On the house, is it?”

Phichit rolls his eyes and pulls out a crumpled five-dollar bill from his back pocket and holds it out. Sanun accepts it gracefully. “On the house it is _,_ ” he says, pushing the kitchen doors open with his shoulder and delivering the beers to Yuuri and Viktor’s table.

Yuuri, predictably, takes a long and desperate swig. Phichit catches the way Viktor watches his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows, and thinks, _that man is so thirsty it’s a wonder he hasn’t died of dehydration._

Yuuri pulls out his phone and starts showing Viktor pictures of his dog. Something in Viktor’s eyes shifts, at that point, and he becomes decidedly less thirsty and a whole lot more smitten. Yuuri, relaxed by the alcohol, begins to open up and talk about how his miniature poodle had been a rescue, how he’s simply amazing and is the best dog ever, and—

Then Viktor pulls out his own phone and starts talking about _his_ dog. “I’m afraid Makkachin is the best dog ever,” he says smoothly, and Yuuri bursts into sweet, startled laughter.

“Tell me about Makkachin,” he says, and Viktor absolutely lights up from within as he launches into the story of how he’d acquired Makka in the first place.

Phichit takes the chance to snap a picture. The lighting’s not ideal, but the right filter will fix that easily. The two of them are huddled around their phones, exchanging stories about their dogs, laughing quietly between themselves. 

“I am _such_ a good wingman,” he says to himself, smiling in satisfaction before he slips his phone back into his pocket and resumes his work in the kitchen.

 

 

*

 

 

> **PHICHIT:** you two were so adorable and wonderful and ROMANTIC  
>  **YOU:** we ewere not dont say htat!!!!  
>  **PHICHIT:** even sanun said he could see the romance and you know he has a heart of ice  
>  **YOU:** no rmoance  
>  **YOU:** no mance  
>  **YOU:** HTERE WASNO MANCE  
>  **PHICHIT:** _Has sent you a picture._  
>  **PHICHIT:** THERE WAS SO MUCH MANCE [smiling face with heart-eyes emoji] [smiling face with heart-eyes emoji] [smiling face with heart-eyes emoji]  
>  **PHICHIT:** [face throwing a kiss emoji]  
>  **PHICHIT:** [eggplant emoji] [eggplant emoji] [eggplant emoji]  
>  **YOU:** …

Yuuri is really only slightly tipsy, but even slightly tipsy makes it difficult to type on his phone. His eyesight is still fully intact, however, and even he has to admit that the picture doesn’t lie. In the picture, he and Viktor are leaning towards each other, pointing at their cell phone screens, wide smiles on both of their faces. They look—comfortable. Easy. Warm. Sunlight spills in from the front windows, something Yuuri suspects Phichit had doctored on his phone. He knows the lighting hadn’t been that great at the restaurant.

He falls backwards into bed. Phichit had opted to stay with his extended family for the night, leaving Yuuri alone with only his cell phone for company. He squints at the picture until the screen fades to black.

Then, it buzzes with an incoming message.

> **VIKTOR:** are you awake?

Yuuri pauses, feeling himself already going into panic mode. Is he awake? His fingers hover over the keyboard, staring wide-eyed at Viktor’s message.

A text balloon with three dots appears beneath Viktor’s message. Yuuri freezes.

> **VIKTOR:** I’m afraid I have a confession to make  
>  **VIKTOR:** At first, I thought you were deliberately ignoring me. But I’ve come to realize… you really don’t remember anything about last year, do you?  
> 

 

Yuuri stares at the screen with dawning horror.

> **YOU:** I um no I don’t?  
>  **YOU:** did i do smethng terribl i  
>  **YOU:** SORRY I didnt meanit i prmisoe  
>  **VIKTOR:** No, no, it. It wasn’t terrible at all.  
>  **VIKTOR:** Here. Maybe it’s better to show you.  
>  **VIKTOR:** _Has sent you a video._

With trembling fingers, Yuuri presses play.

 

 

**2015**

 

“Smile for the camera, Viktor!” Chris hollers as he attaches his phone to a selfie stick and positions it at just the right angle to get the two of them in the shot. He slings an arm around Viktor’s shoulders. “Here we are!”

Viktor obligingly smiles, shooting the phone one of his ever-ready camera winks. “It’s Captain Jack Harkness to you, Ianto.”

Chris smirks back as he begins to pan the camera around. “It’s a little boring this year, isn’t it,” he muses as he takes in the sights. “I was hoping for a little more… excitement.”

“I assume you already have a plan in mind?” Viktor straightens the collar of his jacket as he watches the people mingle and take pictures of each other’s costumes.

“That bowl of punch over there may not be entirely non-alcoholic,” Chris says, fluttering his eyelashes innocently.

Viktor lets out a laugh. “Just as well Yura didn’t attend this year, then. God, can you imagine—”

“Oh, _there we go,_ ” Chris cuts in, waggling his eyebrows. He lets out a loud whoop. “The party, my dear captain, has officially begun.”

Viktor follows his gaze and finds himself staring bemusedly at a young man stumbling across the room, a glass of punch clutched loosely in his right hand. His left hand is busy unbuttoning his shirt.

“Oh, dear,” Viktor says, as he tosses the shirt into the general vicinity of the room.

“Oh, _yes,_ ” Chris says with a leer, going to join him near the front. Somebody starts playing “Back in Black” and Chris definitely knows what he’s doing as he begins thrusting his hips to the beat, his trusty selfie stick still in hand.

The other man—disturbingly pretty, and with a Cheshire grin, gives as good as he’s got, keeping up perfectly with Chris, swaying seductively to the music. Before long, they’ve stripped down to their boxers. The crowd cheers, wolf whistles echoing all around.

“Viktor!” Chris shouts, blowing a kiss. “Get over here!”

Viktor obeys, just in time for Chris to throw a cake in his face. He misses; the cake largely lands on his neck and shoulders. He blinks. “Chris,” he starts, “what—”

“Mm, cake, I love cake,” an unfamiliar voice says, and Viktor, with his gaze cast downwards, only has time to register a pair of bony knees before somebody grabs him by the shoulders and licks cake frosting off his neck. Viktor’s legs buckle at the sensation, and he sinks to the ground. 

“No, don’t go,” the man pleads, climbing into Viktor’s lap. “I haven’t finished.”

 _If you don’t stop,_ I’ll _soon finish,_ Viktor thinks dazedly as the stranger continues to swipe off bits of frosting from his collarbone. With his tongue. Viktor swallows. “I don’t—”

“Shhh,” he says, and then blinks warm, brown eyes at him. Viktor holds his breath. “Oh. _Oh._ Viktor, you’re here.”

“I am,” Viktor manages. “And you are?”

“Yuuri!” He smiles widely, catching Viktor’s face between his palms. “Viktor. Viktor, I love your writing. It’s so good. You write—you write the _best_ Doctor.”

Viktor feels strange. Strange and warm and a little dizzy. “Thank you,” he says, quiet. It’s nothing he hasn’t heard before. He gets messages like that all the time. 

“You write—” Yuuri pauses, frowning. Distractedly, he smears a bit of whipped cream into Viktor’s jacket with his thumb. “You write the loneliest Doctor,” he decides. “Well—the Doctor is always lonely, that’s kind of his thing, but the way you write him, it’s—like it’s personal. It’s too raw to be anything else.” He meets Viktor’s gaze, and for a brief moment, his eyes are startlingly sober. “Viktor, are you lonely?” 

For once, the words are stuck in Viktor’s throat. It doesn’t seem to matter to Yuuri, though, as he abruptly flings his arms around his neck.

“Don’t be lonely, Viktorrrr,” he slurs into Viktor’s ears. Then he stiffens, and pulls away, grabbing Viktor by the chin.

“Viktor,” he says, seriously. 

“Yuuri,” Viktor says, bemusedly.

“Viktor, let’s collaborate!” The grin that splits his face is a thing of beauty, and Viktor decides, right then and there, that he would die on a battlefield for that smile. “I can draw for your fic! Let’s collaborate, okay?” Before Viktor can answer, Yuuri nuzzles into his neck. Viktor wants to hold him close and never let go.

“Collaborate, huh,” Chris drawls. “Is that what we’re calling it nowadays?”

Viktor stares up at him, helpless. Chris laughs, folding up his selfie stick and pausing the recording on his phone.

“Alright,” he says, leaning down to help them up. “Let’s get Cake Boy back to his room, shall we?”

Yuuri stumbles as he attempts to extricate himself from Viktor’s lap, knees scraping harshly against the floor. He hisses as he comes to a full standing position, prodding at his left knee. “That’ll bruise,” he sighs, and Viktor can’t tear his eyes away.

When they finally get Yuuri back to his hotel room, Viktor helps Yuuri put on a pair of dark pajama pants before tucking him into bed. Viktor watches Yuuri toss and turn on the bed before settling into a comfortable position. Chris, by this point, is long gone.

“Don’t forget,” Yuuri reminds him, as Viktor gets ready to leave. “We have to collaborate.”

“Yuuri,” Viktor says, reaching out and brushing his bangs away from his forehead. “I could never forget you.” 

Yuuri smiles sleepily at him before dozing off. Viktor watches him for a little while before grabbing a hotel notepad from the nightstand and scribbling his name and number on it. He sets it back on the nightstand, right next to Yuuri’s phone.

“I could write anything for you,” he murmurs.

  

 

**2016**

“I,” Yuuri gasps into the phone, “am _so sorry._ ”

Viktor laughs. “Why would you be sorry? You were magnificent.”

Yuuri feels his face flush. “It was mortifying,” he whispers.

“It wasn’t,” Viktor counters. “You were gorgeous.”

Yuuri recognizes that he’s not going to win this battle. “Why are you even speaking to me?” He falls back into bed, closing his eyes, replaying the scene of him licking cake frosting off Viktor’s neck over, and over, and over. “I was so—so—”

“Magnificent,” Viktor supplies, and Yuuri groans in sheer mortification.

“I am never drinking again,” he mutters.

Viktor pauses. “Perhaps not in public,” he says, “but I wouldn’t be averse to a more… private display.”

“Oh my god,” Yuuri says after a pause of his own. “You’re actually kind of terrible.”

“Thank you,” Viktor says pleasantly. “Just so you know, I wasn’t entirely joking.”

Yuuri wonders if he’s somehow stepped into a parallel universe. “Really,” he squeaks out. 

“Really,” says Viktor. “If you want, we could switch places, and I wouldn’t even have to be drunk. Frankly, I’m not entirely sure it’s possible for me to get drunk. I’m Russian, you know.”

“I do know,” Yuuri says, helplessly charmed. 

“We could get a nice cake from the store,” Viktor says. 

“That would be a waste,” Yuuri objects. “We should just get whipped cream. It’s cheaper.”

Viktor stops. “Yes,” he says, faintly. “Yes, that would be good.”

Yuuri flushes. “What would you do next?” he asks, sounding braver than he actually feels.

Viktor clears his throat, and his voice is a little shaky when he resumes. “I’d take my time getting it all over you,” he murmurs, “and I’d lick every last bit of it off. From your neck to your chest to your thighs to your knees. Especially your knees.”

Yuuri shivers. “Yeah, well,” he says, “I’d lick whipped cream off your knees too.”

Viktor makes a suspicious choking sound. “Yuuri,” he says, sounding wrecked, and did Yuuri actually do that to him? “Can I come to your room?”

Yuuri— _wants._

But not yet. “No,” he says, allowing mirth to creep into his voice. “I don’t have any whipped cream with me.”

“ _Yuuri_ ,” Viktor says, and if it comes out in a low rumble and Yuuri is reminded a little bit of the Beast’s growl in the last scenes of _Beauty and the Beast,_ well, he’s not saying anything.

“Goodnight, Viktor,” he says primly, and hangs up.

 

 

*

 

> **VIKTOR:** I’m going to marry that boy  
>  **PHICHIT:** are you asking me for his hand in marriage  
>  **PHICHIT:** our yuuri is very sensitive  
>  **PHICHIT:** he needs three meals a day plus afternoon naps with katsudon  
>  **YUURI:** PHICHIT  
>  **PHICHIT:** YUURI  
>  **VIKTOR:** Done!  
>  **CHRIS:** yuuri darling you can get a lot more out of him than that I guarantee you  
>  **YURIO:** for the love of god get me the fuck out of this group chat

 

 

*

 

## stammi vicino

###  [thedoctormakkachin](/)

###  [Chapter 14](/)

### Notes:

Oh, God, I know. It’s been nearly a year since the last update, as [theicetiger ](/)likes to remind me. For what it’s worth, I truly am sorry about the lack of updates, but last year was a little... difficult. You know how it is, I’m sure. But I’ve gotten my act together, Chapter 14 is here at last, and the end is in sight!

If you’re still around, know that I am eternally grateful. Enjoy!

Now with art by [thecakeboy](/). Thank you, love ♥

  

 

**FIN**

**Author's Note:**

> title from ["garden" by halsey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRnjB2W91GI)
> 
> pervy knee jokes for everyone
> 
>  
> 
> [come say hi on tumblr!](https://fireblazie.tumblr.com)


End file.
